BUS 100 (TMA 2)

Before the whole course comes to a conclusion, comes the final test to determine our progress from our previous TMA. In between TMA 1 and 2, the additional lessons we were taught is supposed to prepare us to deal with the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment that is in the near future. Thus, some of the function such as the rand and rand between functions are taught to us to simulate figures that are unknown to us. For example, in order to win a bid for a project, one must know the competitors bid in order to understand how low must the quotation be set for the business to win the bid but not low enough to lose money. Thus, when a company only knows a range of the competitors bid, he can only estimate the figures. The rand function could be used for such instances when guess work is needed. Another purpose for the rand function could also be used to calculate the probability. However, this is taught to us mainly for our future module such as statistics which we will also be using excel. Thus, necessary for us to learn.

Another lesson that was taught to us using excel would be based on the time value of money. Basically the functions relating to how the compounding works. In a nutshell, $1 today would be worth more tomorrow due to inflation. Thus, these functions (PV, FV, PMT, Rate, NPER) is taught to us so that we can make use of this to better manage our finances or investment assets (might be a module that will be taught to us in the future.)

And so, you can see that our TMA have been moulded around these lessons. Coupled with the feedback given in the first TMA lesson, we are supposed to work on developing a model that would act as a time value calculator and another model that would act as a simulation to calculate the probability of a event occurring through several trials. As such the two questions we were supposed to work on is stated below

As seen the first question requires us to develop a 'mortgage calculator' and the second question requires us to develop a simulation to tabulate the probability of a certain event occuring

How I developed my first question would be the first box being the input values. Users would first have to select what they want to find out under the drop down box at cell C4. In this screenshot, it would be payment per period. The black cell in F7 would indicate to users not to input anything in that cell. After all the input cells (cells with blue fonts) has been filled up in row 7, the answer will be provided at row 16 with additional details with the answers indicated with a green box. As for the header with the monthly payment, it is part b) of the question which is supposed to be a table to show the different figures when the rate and years varies. However, this part of the question can be further improved if the constraint of fitting my answer into an A4 sheet has been removed. Though there is no feedback given for this TMA, I suspect the reason behind why I scored worse for my question 1 compared to question 2 was because of the two rows for my time value calculator. Thus, I can only say that if there is more time given, I might have developed a more compact calculator. 

How I constructed my question 2 would be to develop 100 trials as stated. As one of the tip the lessons taught us is to develop for the unexpected, I added created the input section in cell B and C5 to account for more dices and more sides if such instances ever occur. Additional parts that warrant a highlight would be in Column C, D and E which uses the rand functions to simulate the rolling of dice in order to tabulate the probability of having a certain probability on a certain number. As shown in the table at column I, the tabulation of a certain number from the 100 trails are shown here. Thus, the graph is derived from the table in column I which shows a normal distribution. Same as question 1, the difficulty faced would be fitting the model into an A4 sized paper. Thus, how I overcome this difficulty would be to hide some of the more irrelevant trials (ie, trial 20-90) and showing a less complete table for simulations.

In essence, what TMA 2 taught us more about would mostly be how to handle situations of uncertainty. Secondly, some of these lessons are taught just so we are able to better handle ourselves for other modules such as statistics which probabilities are involved and finance related modules which enables us to appreciate about the time value of money. As this is the last post that I am about to write for this module, I would say learning all about excel allowed me to appreciate how such a program would help us immensely in our future at the workforce in order to make our life easier.